"To be honest, if you had been any slower in noticing the anomaly here, I would have considered sending up flares to lure you. After all, you are about to witness the birth of an existence that can change the world — and it will happen in less than a night. Ironic, isn't it? That something capable of destroying the world must be born at dawn."
Kirei's tone carried a strange note of reverence. He turned, his gaze lingering on the towering, pillar-like mass enclosed within a translucent film of flesh. Inside, countless eyes writhed and shifted, surveying the world with an unsettling hunger.
"But this also means that even if you insist on defining it as evil, it nevertheless yearns for light. The Lord said that all things are equal. As a servant of the Lord, I have come to understand that deeply. No creature is truly born equal — he is merely a special child, is he not?"
Kayneth's eyes narrowed at the grotesque pillar looming before them. Those countless, ceaselessly moving eyes resembled a demon's embryo. To call such a thing their equal? A farce.
All the magecraft and knowledge at his disposal failed him here. He searched his memory, the tomes he had studied, the illustrations he had once examined. Yet everything — demon pillars, evil Buddhas, infernal embryos, even eldritch giants — all seemed to overlap with this single, abhorrent existence before his eyes.
Meanwhile, in Einzbern Castle, Kiritsugu finally unearthed a slim, weathered book. It was closer to a diary than a treatise — the last testament of a homunculus who had once participated in the Third Holy Grail War, eager to leave behind some final trace of her existence.
Finally, we have arrived in this city. Because of the war, this country is suffused with an oppressive atmosphere. Such constant repression cannot last forever; eventually, fanaticism will erupt. Yet none of this truly concerns us. This seaside town, small and without resources, has been spared the worst of it.
But I doubt its people could imagine that another war is about to unfold beneath their feet — the Holy Grail War, a struggle of seven magi and seven Heroic Spirits. Should the fighting grow fierce, this city will surely be reduced to ruin.
By my great-grandfather's design, our family did not summon from the seven standard classes. Instead, we invoked something… different. My great-grandfather inspired me to attempt summoning an Avenger. It is almost absurd — that this boy, who seemed nothing but hollow and broken, would be chosen as the vessel of all the world's evils described in the legends of a faith.
Kiritsugu lowered the diary for a moment, frowning deeply. He felt, with dreadful certainty, that this record would explain the Grail's corruption. That the Einzbern family might be directly tied to it — to his wife's family — shook him.
To pursue victory in the Grail War, they had summoned not a hero, but the embodiment of malice itself. Did they not fear the price?
"Magicians are all madmen," Kiritsugu muttered bitterly. He could not help but think of his own father, Emiya Norikata, once a Sealing Designate of the Mage's Association.
The Emiya craft was a bounded field that manipulated the flow of time, speeding it up or slowing it down, free from external interference. Norikata sought to push the principle to its limit — to accelerate time infinitely within a microcosm, approaching the Root by observing the ultimate end of the universe.
The theory was brilliant. But the experiment demanded centuries. Confronted with his mortality, Norikata turned toward the forbidden: the path of the Dead Apostles.
What were Dead Apostles? Most "vampires" in common lore were merely humans twisted through various processes into these beings. Sustained by blood, they grew drunk on predation, reshaping their very sense of self. Those who slipped free from the True Ancestors' chains infiltrated human society, repeating the cycle endlessly. They fed, created thralls, and birthed new Apostles in an almost infinite chain — one destined to end only with humanity's extinction.
That Norikata had sought such a path — to abandon humanity in pursuit of the Root — placed him on the same level of madness as the Einzberns summoning the so-called Angra Mainyu, the "All the World's Evils" condemned by a Pope centuries ago.
(A side note: Fou is, in fact, a vampire — one ranked first even among the Church's records. Consider yourself blessed if you've ever glimpsed that white beast. Its true origin is that of the Primate Killer, Gaia's own monster.)
Kiritsugu's expression shifted as he compared his father's folly to the Einzberns' recklessness. His grip on the diary tightened. He hesitated before turning the next page. A terrible premonition told him that whatever came next would confirm the disaster the Einzbern family had unleashed.
What I could not have imagined is how low the Avenger's attributes truly were. Though my great-grandfather declared him the progenitor of all Avengers, this boy — listless, decadent even — was weak. How could such a frail soul embody the world's evil? Surely something was amiss.
As expected, we were defeated on the very first day. We barely managed to escape. Even the Avenger himself admitted he was the weakest of all Heroic Spirits, nothing more than an ordinary man. With no Noble Phantasms of note, his summoning was a mistake. A cruel mistake.
On the third day, we were attacked again. The Avenger fell. Of course he did. We were prepared for it from the start. I end my diary here. I will go to the church and await the Holy Grail War's end. Perhaps I should leave one last note: the Avenger's name was—
-End Chapter-
Visit the Patreon!!
Read 30 chapters ahead, more on the way!
[email protected]/TrashProspector